Dangote predicts economic revival

President of Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has predicted Nigeria’s economic revival, stating that the current challenges facing the country will soon be a thing of the past.

He appealed to Nigerians to contribute their own quota by doing what is right and paying their taxes in order to experience real growth and development.

A statement from the company on Friday quoted the Dangote boss as saying this when a group of entrepreneurs visited him in his office in Lagos.

Aliko appealed to Nigerians to be consistent in paying their taxes, as part of their contributions to the growth and development of the country.

He urged the citizenry not to be discouraged by various challenges facing the nation, stating that they were necessary steps needed for the nation to rank among the best industrially in years to come.

He however called on both indigenous and foreign investors to invest more in the economy, adding that Nigeria was the best place to have good returns on investment.

He said the company would invest more in Nigeria, create more jobs as he had an unwavering faith in the nation’s economy.

Dangote, who is a member of the National Economic Management Team, stated that what Nigerians needed most was economic empowerment.

He explained that economic development of the country rested more on the shoulders of the private sector operators, while government’s strategic role was to ensure a conducive environment by putting in place the right policies that would encourage setting up of businesses.

Consequently, he urged local investors to complement the Federal government’s efforts at ensuring the success of the economic agenda by delving into manufacturing as one of the means of empowering Nigerians through job creation.

He promised to ensure that his investment would focus on job creation and urged other investors to do the same, for the nation to be among the best 20 developed countries in 2020.

The business mogul noted that it was only through the active involvement of the private sector that the infrastructure deficit could be tracked and tackled by government, adding that all countries of the world whose economies had made appreciable impact on the citizenry had done so through manufacturing.

To buttress his position, Dangote referred to a report published last August by the renowned Global Consulting firm, McKinsey, on the economic potentials in Nigeria and a host of other African countries.

He said, “The McKensey report is very instructive, it says that half of the 30 million jobs in African manufacturing offer wage paying employment, a higher share than most sectors. If current projections for manufacturing value-added growth hold, it is estimated that the sector will create eight million more stable jobs by 2020.”

According to him the transformation agenda of the Federal Government will perfectly key into projection of the report if the private sector participate effectively in the economic turn-around measures.

The private sector is the moving force in Capitalism. The private sector should be empowered and government function should be; regulation and provision of infrastructure.
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